Coronavirus / COVID-19

[ReluctantSamurai]

I know US elections are front and center, at the moment, but I'm going to repeat something I said earlier---by the spring, the US will be approaching the devastation levels of the 1918 pandemic. If we all thought that CoviDon had wreaked havoc on the US all throughout the current pandemic, he's taken it to a new low in claiming that the virus can't be stopped. States with mostly Republican governors have taken up CoviDon's deadly mantra, and are now willing to adopt the "herd immunity" strategy and just let the virus do as it wants:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/u...s-control.html

The congregation of Candlelight Christian Fellowship gathered around tables in the church sanctuary one night last week to sip coffee and grapple with theological questions. From down the hall came the laughter of dozens of children at play.With a potluck dinner, no masks and plenty of shared hugs, the night felt like a throwback to the pre-pandemic era except for a noticeable exception on the stage: The lead pastor, Paul Van Noy, was addressing the congregation with the aid of supplemental oxygen, piped into his nostrils from a small tank.

“I think we just open up and we just let it take its course,” said Nancy Hillberg, 68, as church members mingled after the service. “Just let it be done.”

Just let it be done??

Governors around the country, particularly Republican ones, are following the president’s lead in resisting new restrictions against a virus that has powerfully persisted despite lockdowns in some areas over the spring and summer.
Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota wrote that “there is no way to stop the virus,” while Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota said that when it comes to saving lives, “it’s not a job for government, this is a job for everybody.” In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee told residents that “at the end of the day, personal responsibility is the only way.” Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska said in an interview that rising case numbers this fall should not cause people to go into hiding.

“It’s like being told you’re going to get hit with a meteorite,” Mr. Dunleavy said. “There comes a point where people just say, ‘I still have to live. I still have to work. I still have to have contact with my family.’”


In Boise, an outbreak at the Idaho State Veterans Home has resulted in 26 active cases and two recent deaths among residents, along with 16 employees who have tested positive.
Gov. Brad Little has restored restrictions on large gatherings but has faced blowback from some fellow Republicans and resisted a mask mandate. Last week, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin joined with a group of lawmakers in posting a video calling for an end to all state and local emergency orders, vowing to ignore them in the future. In the video, Ms. McGeachin laid a gun on a Bible.

“The fact that a pandemic may or may not be occurring changes nothing about the meaning or intent of the State Constitution in the preservation of our inalienable rights,” the political leaders said in the video and accompanying letter.

May or may not be occurring...

Yep....conspiracies, guns and religion---great combo

“I’m not convinced that all of our efforts have had a great impact on the spread or lack thereof,” Mr. Van Noy said. “I do think that we’ve done a lot of harm to our economy, to the psyche of personages. I mean, we see depression. We see all kinds of issues that are developing because people have a sense of hopelessness.”

And there you have it...money before health---of course ignoring the fact that the longer it takes to get this pandemic under control, the longer the economy suffers.

The number of US military deaths in WW2: 407,316. The number of US military deaths in WW1: 116,516. We will exceed the the number of military deaths in WW2 by spring (assuming 1k/day), and we will exceed the combined number of deaths for both wars by summer.

It's this kind of fucked up mentality that's prompting me to find another country to live in (regardless of the presidential outcome). I have no desire to expend energy resisting this sort of crap in the time I have remaining.

[Beskar]

Wouldn't Republicans disproportionately* be affected by Covid-19, therefore making this the hill to die on?

(*ie: statically older generation, not taking measures such as wearing masks or social distancing.)

[ReluctantSamurai]

Wouldn't Republicans disproportionately* be affected by Covid-19, therefore making this the hill to die on?

A majority of Republicans don't care about COVID-19. You see it at CoviDon's rallies...thousands of people gathering, few wear masks. New study shows that from June to September, Trump rallies led to about 30,000 cases and about 700 deaths:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/u...p-rallies.html

That number is likely far higher if October is factored in with the sky rocketing case loads in the very states where these rallies were held that month. The only conclusion I can draw is that those folks simply don't give a shit...

[Montmorency]

A majority of Republicans don't care about COVID-19. You see it at CoviDon's rallies...thousands of people gathering, few wear masks. New study shows that from June to September, Trump rallies led to about 30,000 cases and about 700 deaths:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/u...p-rallies.html

That number is likely far higher if October is factored in with the sky rocketing case loads in the very states where these rallies were held that month. The only conclusion I can draw is that those folks simply don't give a shit...

https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/sta...70380403531783

This was an interesting finding: the majority of Trump supporters who favor mask mandates and lockdowns... think Trump also supports those things. If there’s been one loud message from him these past several months, it’s that he vehemently opposes both of those things.

For your attention. It's a different universe.

“It’s like being told you’re going to get hit with a meteorite,” Mr. Dunleavy said. “There comes a point where people just say, ‘I still have to live. I still have to work. I still have to have contact with my family.’”

If you're going to be hit by a meteor, you don't have to live or work. Collective death is imminent! Traditionally in this scenario one indulges in their private version of unrestrained hedonism: 'What are you going to do with your last 24 hours?'

Or maybe that accounts for the entire Republican philosophy.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Wouldn't Republicans disproportionately* be affected by Covid-19, therefore making this the hill to die on?

(*ie: statically older generation, not taking measures such as wearing masks or social distancing.)

Correct on the statistics. However, the Trump cadre is enamored of "toughness" and completely convinced that they are such. So, they might get sick, but it is not a big threat. FIDO.

ALL of Trump's successes are a testament to his belief in willpower. His folks implicitly believe that willpower will beat the virus.

Go figure.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Something to keep an eye on:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/07/europ...ntl/index.html

Denmark announced it would cull its entire mink population after it discovered evidence that the disease that causes novel coronavirus had mutated in mink, after being passed on by humans. The new variant was also found to have spread to humans, with 214 confirmed infections as of Friday.

Statens Serum Institut, the Danish authority based in Copenhagen which deals with infectious diseases, had found five cases of the virus in mink farms and 12 examples in humans that showed reduced sensitivity to antibodies, she said. Allowing the virus to spread could potentially limit the effectiveness of future vaccines.

Ouch. Euthanizing the entire mink population Will be interesting to see how other countries with mink farms respond....

[Hooahguy]

Good news on the vaccine front:

The first effective coronavirus vaccine can prevent more than 90% of people from getting Covid-19, a preliminary analysis shows.

The developers - Pfizer and BioNTech - described it as a "great day for science and humanity".

Their vaccine has been tested on 43,500 people in six countries and no safety concerns have been raised.

The companies plan to apply for emergency approval to use the vaccine by the end of the month.

There are still huge challenges ahead, but the announcement has been warmly welcomed with scientists describing themselves smiling "ear to ear" and some suggesting life could be back to normal by spring.

"I am probably the first guy to say that, but I will say that with some confidence," said Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University.

[Montmorency]

Cluster-busting?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...ted-lockdowns/

New York officials have embraced a new strategy to quash coronavirus spikes — shutting down schools and businesses with almost surgical precision, using block-by-block infection data while also boosting testing and contact tracing in those communities.

Follow the latest on Election 2020
The idea is to stamp out virus sparks quickly, before adjacent areas catch flame, while avoiding the devastation of citywide lockdowns.

The unique effort, supported by a massive state and city testing apparatus, has been largely successful so far, earning the admiration of epidemiologists. But neither state nor city officials are taking a victory lap as they watch cases surge to their highest-ever levels in sister cities throughout the United States and Europe — and with painful memories of the spring outbreak when virus deaths exceeded 700 per day.

“We’re all heartened at the fact that this is working,” said Jackie Bray, deputy executive director of NYC Test & Trace Corps, an initiative the city launched in June that employs 4,000 tracers with a budget of about $1 billion in city and federal funds. “We’re clear-eyed at how hard this is going to be to sustain through the fall and the winter.”

The map is built from the results of the nearly a million coronavirus tests New York has conducted per week, or about 0.6 percent of the state population daily, as of late October. The home address of every person with a positive test result is funneled into a health department database. Such data determines whether areas are designated red, orange or yellow zones.

“We identify the micro-cluster, that’s called a red zone. We then put a buffer around it, that’s called an orange zone, we then put a buffer around the orange zone which is a yellow zone,” New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) said at a news conference on Oct. 21, likening the spread of the virus to ripples created by a pebble dropped in a pond. “These areas are so small that people walk to a store, people walk to a restaurant and you see the viral expansion will be a series of concentric circles.”

lol at the lead photo

I'm impressed at the sheer rapidity of scaling in testing, though we should have been here 3 or 4 months ago. Multiple states testing over 100K daily. New York alone testing more than all (or almost all) countries.

And, of course, caught up with California once more.

Pretty cool that South Dakota has had a 50% positivity ratio so far this month.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Cluster-busting?

It seems to work as both Japan and S. Korea largely employ the method:

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavir...n?country=~JPN

Bi-Weekly cases/1M: Canada 1329...Germany 2882...Japan 95...S.Korea 32...UK 4658...US 4466

14 Day Change: Canada +39%...Germany +86%...Japan +51%...S.Korea +32%...UK +12%...US +60%

Positivity Rate: Canada 6.6%...Germany 6.6%...Japan 3.4%...S.Korea 1.1%...UK 8.3%...US 8.3%

Daily Confirmed Deaths (month-over-month): Canada +60...Germany +260...Japan +6...S.Korea -2...UK +518...US...+458

The data can be manipulated in many different ways, sometimes a bit confusing, but this site has become my #1 go-to for pandemic info...

[Montmorency]

Europe is now deep into its second continent-wide lockdown - any thoughts? We've all pretty much given up here in America.

Almost all European countries have evinced serious flaws in their responses over time, but at least they demonstrate some flexibility and willingness to learn. Sweden still resists however. Their big intervention now is to... place restrictions on the sale of alcohol at night, a measure so obscure in logic I can't interpret it as anything other than theater (to be fair, Gov. Cuomo in New York promulgated much the same policy last month, but it was alongside more concrete data-driven interventions).

I understand there is a curve for governments working with obscenely-conservative and technically non-proficient public health administration (Quentin-Tarantino-looking schmuck), but at some point the actual executive has to assume liability.
https://www.euronews.com/2020/11/13/...onavirus-cases
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...ierce-backlash
https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/

It seems, despite Tegnell's denials, mass infection was always their public health strategy.

However, for now, authorities are not considering recommending Swedes wear face masks, according to Euronews reporter Per Bergfors Nyberg.

He says Swedish health officials believe making masks mandatory will give people a "false sense of security" and could make matters worse.

Jesus Christ, how is this still a thing in late fall 2020? What a heel turn it would be if it happened that the Swedish government were deliberately hindering the adoption of masking in order to keep the virus as unmitigated as possible... Coupled with the death panels preemptive triage for the elderly sick that contributed to so many deaths... Makes you think.

What makes it a tragedy is that Sweden was well-placed to avoid most of the damage with some simple changes. We have so many examples of successful intervention, whereas it's doubtful that "natural" herd immunity has ever been achieved in a large population for any infectious disease (leaving aside the cost of even theoretical success). There need to be penalties for reckless and callous ideological fixation in disregard of evidence. In the final estimate the Swedish people did right by themselves, but their government failed them badly.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Yep, here we are......again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQCG2AwzTxA

While the medical community has increased their knowledge of SARS-Cov-2 greatly in the last nine months, the common person has not:

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2...virus-pandemic

The past few months have been an American experiment with Covid-19: Can the country keep bars, restaurants, gyms, and other businesses open while fighting the virus with milder measures, including some social distancing and widespread masking?
Six months after spring shutdowns ended, the answer is clear: The milder approach isn’t working.

Unlike the spring outbreak, the current disaster isn’t isolated to the New York City area and a few other states. It’s truly national: Every state now has more than four daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people, the standard for having Covid-19 under control. And some states now breach 100 daily new cases per 100,000 — which was unthinkable months ago. That’ll make it much harder to respond to outbreaks, as states dealing with their own crises won’t be able to, as they did in the spring and summer, send reinforcements of doctors and nurses to support other places.

With the milder measures failing us, it’s clear what needs to happen: To avert possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths in the months before a vaccine becomes widely available, the US needs to close down once again. That means temporarily shuttering in-person, indoor services at nonessential businesses, particularly bars and restaurants; restricting larger gatherings, including in private homes; and encouraging, or outright mandating, people to stay home as much as possible — only going out for food, work, exercise, health care, and other basics needs — and limit their social interactions to their own households.


As states have reopened, officials across the country have argued that other measures, like physical distancing, masking, and aggressive testing and tracing, can keep coronavirus cases down.

It’s true all these measures work to reduce coronavirus cases, based on a growing body of research and real-world evidence. But these approaches don’t seem to be working as well as many hoped.
Part of it is an adherence problem, in which people simply aren’t social distancing and masking. In some states, an increase in larger gatherings, such as house parties, has led to more Covid-19 cases. Rates of masking in public can drop below 75 or even 70 percent in some states, and the real rates are likely lower since people may not be honest with survey takers about their mask use. Fifteen states still don’t have mask mandates at all.

Is there a better argument for the "cluster-busting" used by both Japan and S. Korea than this statement?

The other problem is the milder approaches don’t seem to work well enough when cases are already high or rising. Consider contact tracing: The idea is “disease detectives” can contact people who are positive for the coronavirus to get them to isolate, find out their close contacts, and get those close contacts to quarantine. But that is simply much harder when there are more than 100,000 new cases a day — it requires much more staff, time, and resources. Even the best teams may not be able to keep up with exponential spread.

Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, estimated that contact tracing becomes difficult at 10 daily new cases per 100,000 people. The US is now at more than four times that, and some states are past 10 or even 15 times that threshold.

New York has a lot of testing, a contact tracing program, and a mask mandate, and strongly recommends social distancing. But it’s still seen its cases spiral as it’s reopened more and more. Since the state allowed indoor dining to reopen in New York City in September, with parts of the state reopening before that, cases have spiked from a weekly average of 800 a day to more than 4,400. Indoor dining doesn’t explain the whole increase, but it’s reflective of a wider reopening that measures like masking simply haven’t been able to keep up with.

And the real problem.....AGAIN:

Adherence to existing mandates and guidelines, meanwhile, is spotty. Some experts argued: If we can’t get people to mask up, can we really get them to close down? “I could describe it as a fantasy,” Kumi Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, told me. “I don’t know what political and cultural stars would have to align for, really, Americans everywhere to appreciate the gravity of the situation and make a lot of personal sacrifices.” Crucially, the bulk of this work must come from Congress and the White House. A big reason that states aren’t closing down right now is because they simply don’t have the resources or reach, especially as they deal with an economic downturn, to offer enough financial support to individuals and businesses hurt by new restrictions. The federal government does.

The idea of further lockdowns would be much more palatable if financial aid were given like in the spring. However, Dr. No is more interested in getting a vote on more Trump judicial appointees (six of them currently) than in finding a solution to the current aid deadlock in Congress.

https://www.rollcall.com/2020/10/30/...ges-lame-duck/

So here we are........Groundhog Day.....all over again

[Hooahguy]

While the US spirals with more Covid cases and deaths, a bright spot of news: the Moderna vaccine has been shown to be is 94.5% effective. Plus some major logistical benefits to this one over the Pfizer one-

While the two vaccines appear to have very similar safety and efficacy profiles, Moderna's vaccine has a significant practical advantage over Pfizer's.

Pfizer's vaccine has to be kept at minus 75 degrees Celsius. No other vaccine in the US needs to be kept that cold, and doctors' offices and pharmacies do not have freezers that go that low.

Moderna's vaccine can be kept at minus 20 degrees Celsius. Other vaccines, such as the one against chickenpox, need to be kept at that temperature.

That means Moderna's vaccine can be kept in "a readily available freezer that is available in most doctors' offices and pharmacies," Zacks said. "We leverage infrastructure that already exists for other marketed vaccines."

Another advantage of Moderna's vaccine is that it can be kept for 30 days in the refrigerator, the company announced Monday. Pfizer's vaccine can last only five days in the refrigerator.

I could see the deployment of both vaccines- like perhaps the Pfizer one to cities with the infrastructure for deep freezing, while the Moderna one goes to harder to reach areas.

[Montmorency]

It's what happens when you maximize the Research slider.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I could see the deployment of both vaccines- like perhaps the Pfizer one to cities with the infrastructure for deep freezing, while the Moderna one goes to harder to reach areas.

A monumental accomplishment, to say the least. Now comes an equally difficult task...getting enough people to take a vaccine to actually have an impact on the spread of the virus.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I expect to see more of this in the next several months:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...rs-coronavirus

“If hospital administrators start forcing Covid-positive staff to go to work, it’s going to be very scary. We’re trained to do no harm, and asking Covid-positive, asymptomatic nurses to return to work is putting patients at risk. It’s putting fellow staff members at risk.”

Healthcare workers are overwhelmed and exhausted. According to a recent survey from the National Nurses United, more than 70% of hospital nurses said they were afraid of contracting Covid-19 and 80% feared they might infect a family member. More than half said they struggled to sleep and 62 reported feeling stressed and anxious. Nearly 80% said they were forced to re-use single-use, PPE, like N95 respirators.

Inaction at the state and federal levels have left many healthcare workers feeling abandoned. When Governor Burgum issued the order that infected but asymptomatic nurses could report to work in Covid units, North Dakota had not implemented any kind of statewide mask mandate, despite expert guidance that such a measure could significantly reduce transmission of the virus.

If I were a doctor or a nurse, I'd be finding it difficult to treat patients many of whom I'd know had a cavalier attitude about this pandemic, and now they are in the hospital with COVID-19 expecting to be saved by the very medical profession they believe are perpetrating a giant hoax designed to take away their freedoms. Americans are fucking stupid and ungrateful.....

[Montmorency]

I expect to see more of this in the next several months:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...rs-coronavirus



If I were a doctor or a nurse, I'd be finding it difficult to treat patients many of whom I'd know had a cavalier attitude about this pandemic, and now they are in the hospital with COVID-19 expecting to be saved by the very medical profession they believe are perpetrating a giant hoax designed to take away their freedoms. Americans are fucking stupid and ungrateful.....

https://twitter.com/NewDay/status/1328319845012824065 [video]

A South Dakota ER nurse
@JodiDoering
says her Covid-19 patients often “don’t want to believe that Covid is real.”

“Their last dying words are, ‘This can’t be happening. It’s not real.’ And when they should be... Facetiming their families, they’re filled with anger and hatred.”

Death cult.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Another example of duality in how laws are applied to the general public, and government officials:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-positive-test

And yet POTUS can hold potential super-spreader events (and continues to hold them, ie. White House Christmas parties) that has infected dozens in immediate White House personnel, and thousands in political rallies. Can't wait for this dip-shit to be gone from the Oval Office....

[Gilrandir]

This is the way to cure COVID.

[Montmorency]

The Swedish government finally cracked, if a little.

Sweden’s Covid-19 experiment is over.

After a late autumn surge in infections led to rising hospitalizations and deaths, the government has abandoned its attempt—unique among Western nations—to combat the pandemic through voluntary measures.

In an emotional televised address on Nov. 22, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven pleaded with Swedes to cancel all nonessential meetings and announced a ban on gatherings of more than eight people, which triggered the closure of cinemas and other entertainment venues. Starting Monday, high schools will be closed.

“Authorities chose a strategy totally different to the rest of Europe, and because of it the country has suffered a lot in the first wave,” said Piotr Nowak, a physician working with Covid-19 patients at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. “We have no idea how they failed to predict the second wave.”

Last week Sweden’s total coronavirus death count crossed 7,000. Neighboring Denmark, Finland and Norway, all similar-sized countries, have recorded since the start of the pandemic 878, 415 and 354 deaths respectively. For the first time since World War II, Sweden’s neighbors have closed their borders with the country.

One reason Sweden stuck to its approach for so long despite the warning signs is the high degree of independence and authority enjoyed by the health agency and other similar state bodies under Swedish law.

The public face of the country’s pandemic strategy was Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist.

Dr. Tegnell declined to be interviewed this week, but in earlier conversations with The Wall Street Journal and other media he said lockdowns were unsustainable and unnecessary. His agency has continued to discourage mask-wearing just as the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, a European Union agency whose headquarters are located near Dr. Tegnell’s office in Stockholm, recommends wearing them.

In recent months, Dr. Tegnell predicted that Swedes would gradually build immunity to the virus through controlled exposure, that vaccines would take longer than expected to develop, and that death rates across the West would converge.

Instead, the West’s first coronavirus vaccine was authorized in Britain last week, Sweden’s death rate remains an outlier among its neighbors, and Dr. Tegnell acknowledged in late November that the new surge in infections showed there was “no sign” of herd immunity in the country.

Meanwhile, Sweden’s laissez-faire pandemic strategy has failed to deliver the economic benefits its proponents had predicted. In the first half of the year, Sweden’s gross domestic product fell by 8.5% and unemployment is projected to rise to nearly 10% in the beginning of 2021, according to the central bank and several economic institutes.

Businesses such as restaurants, hotels and retail outfits are facing a wave of closures; unlike in the rest of Europe, where governments coupled restrictions with generous stimulus, Swedish authorities have offered comparatively less support to businesses since they didn’t impose closures.

“This is worse than a lockdown and it has been a catastrophic year for everyone in the business: They haven’t closed us so they don’t give us any substantial support, yet they say to people ‘don’t go to restaurants’,” said Jonas Hamlund, who was forced to close one of his two restaurants in the coastal city of Sundsvall, laying off 30 people.

Fear of the virus and the government’s advice to avoid social interactions have weighed on domestic demand, damaging business and investor confidence, said Lars Calmfors, an economist and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

“Countries that had mandatory restrictions have done better than us,” he added.

“We like to think of ourselves as being very rational and pragmatic,” Mr. Calmfors, the economist, said. Yet for months, he added, authorities persisted in their approach despite mounting evidence that it was failing. “I can’t recognize my country anymore.”

While it is a smaller failure compared to countries like the US and Brazil, the realization that so much better was available to the Swedish population, and for so little extra effort, makes it somehow more shameful. Let's not export America's tyranny of low standards.

Well, OK, I don't quite believe that. For the US to perform as it did, having the resources it had, is inexcusable and casts it unfavorably against every other country, including every so-called developing world debacle (let alone the success stories).

[Crandar]

That didn't age well.

[Shaka_Khan]

If I were a doctor or a nurse, I'd be finding it difficult to treat patients many of whom I'd know had a cavalier attitude about this pandemic, and now they are in the hospital with COVID-19 expecting to be saved by the very medical profession they believe are perpetrating a giant hoax designed to take away their freedoms. Americans are fucking stupid and ungrateful.....

Many people are confused and unprepared because this pandemic and the masks are being politicized. And the mixed messages by the top people in the WHO and in the high positions of certain governments made the level of urgency even more confusing - first claiming that it was nothing to worry about, that it doesn't spread via aerosol and that masks aren't necessary, then changing their minds and saying that masks and lockdowns are necessary. Most of all, one government silenced the whistleblowers and initially tried to hide the outbreak in their country. We're lucky because we watched the whistleblowers' videos before their videos got deleted.

[Montmorency]

Wow.

You may be surprised to learn that of the trio of long-awaited coronavirus vaccines, the most promising, Moderna’s mRNA-1273, which reported a 94.5 percent efficacy rate on November 16, had been designed by January 13. This was just two days after the genetic sequence had been made public in an act of scientific and humanitarian generosity that resulted in China’s Yong-Zhen Zhang’s being temporarily forced out of his lab. In Massachusetts, the Moderna vaccine design took all of one weekend. It was completed before China had even acknowledged that the disease could be transmitted from human to human, more than a week before the first confirmed coronavirus case in the United States. By the time the first American death was announced a month later, the vaccine had already been manufactured and shipped to the National Institutes of Health for the beginning of its Phase I clinical trial.

Although I hear that the 1968 flu pandemic saw a vaccine in distribution in less than half a year, so I guess flu vaccines are just easy???

[Viking]

mRNA vaccines sound simple enough: identify parts of the virus genome that code for proteins that could trigger an immune response when the live virus enters the body. In practice, I guess any protein on the viral surface, such as spike proteins. In enveloped viruses, such as the coronaviruses, many or all surface proteins should have an easily identifiable signature that means that they can be more or less detected automatically from the genetic sequence.

Then you need to find a protein that that is similar enough in shape when it is produced in isolation (without the rest of the virus) and when it is found on the surface of live viruses (and maybe elsewhere during the viral lifecycle, too). You also need a method to deliver the mRNA to human cells; which perhaps is largely independent of the virus. Then you have it.

[Shaka_Khan]

It was completed before China had even acknowledged that the disease could be transmitted from human to human, more than a week before the first confirmed coronavirus case in the United States.

Those who watched the Chinese whistleblower videos already knew about the human to human transmission before the Chinese government acknowledged it. But still, January 13 is a surprisingly quick time to design a vaccine. They must've known about the outbreak since 2019.

[Montmorency]

mRNA vaccines sound simple enough: identify parts of the virus genome that code for proteins that could trigger an immune response when the live virus enters the body. In practice, I guess any protein on the viral surface, such as spike proteins. In enveloped viruses, such as the coronaviruses, many or all surface proteins should have an easily identifiable signature that means that they can be more or less detected automatically from the genetic sequence.

Then you need to find a protein that that is similar enough in shape when it is produced in isolation (without the rest of the virus) and when it is found on the surface of live viruses (and maybe elsewhere during the viral lifecycle, too). You also need a method to deliver the mRNA to human cells; which perhaps is largely independent of the virus. Then you have it.

Sounds legit. According to the article I linked, there was existing knowledge on how to target coronavirus spike proteins from the cumulative research on SARS virus. Also, that "it would be possible to do all the research, development, preclinical testing, and Phase I trials for new viral pandemics before those new viruses had even emerged — to have those vaccines sitting on the shelf and ready to go when they did... for nearly the entire universe of potential future viral pandemics — at least 90 percent of them, one of them told me, and likely more." And this would probably cost only a few billion dollars. Bittersweet if plausible, setting up another tragedy of the will-we-prepare-for-things-that-are-easily-prepared-for-yet-will-cost-trillions-of-dollars-and-millions-of-lives-if-we-don'ts.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I've referenced this before, and hopefully, the promise it shows will attract more researchers and more funding:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-out-the-virus

It might sound more Take A Break magazine than the British Medical Journal, and Guest admits she has had to put up with a lot of scepticism along the way. But she points out that, back in 2004 she worked on the first scientific study that showed dogs can detect human bladder cancer, which was in fact published in the BMJ. Recently, she’s worked alongside Professors James Logan at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and Steve Lindsay of the department of biosciences at Durham University, among others, on a successful project to train dogs to identify malaria.

Samples are collected from hospitals, volunteers, people who test positive and develop symptoms of various degrees of severity, as well as asymptomatic cases. They wear socks, T-shirts and masks overnight, which go to Logan and his team for processing. Then the samples are sent on to Medical Detection Dogs to see if the dogs confirm what they had been hearing anecdotally from the wards: that Covid-19 has a smell. “Some people have described it as a sickly sweet smell,” says Logan.

“We are not looking to replace clinical testing,” Logan says. “We are keen to use dogs in very specific circumstances, where we need to get through a lot of people quickly. Airports, sports stadiums, train stations, universities, care homes.” Guest points out how useful it would have been to deploy Covid dogs at the airports early on in the pandemic, with all those flights coming here, bringing in so-called “super-spreaders”.

With all the brilliant news about vaccines and their efficacy, won’t the Covid dogs be redundant before they even get to work? Logan mentions “a readiness platform, for the next one. We know what to do, what samples we need, and how to collect them, so we can deal with this quicker next time.” If necessary, there could be a team of dogs, trained and ready to go, to sent out to an emerging virus’s country of origin.

Guest knows how hard it is to roll out a mass vaccination programme: shehasn’t been able to get a flu jab this winter. “I think there’s going to be work for the dogs to do,” she says. Medical Detection Dogs is also collaborating with a quantum physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on developing electronic sensors to do the same work as the dogs, sniffing out disease (specifically prostate cancer), but that’s not currently up and running. Don’t stand the dogs down just yet, in other words.

[Montmorency]

Another entry in the we-knew-all-this-already-but-here's-more sweepstakes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...ic-dark-winter

The catastrophe began with Trump’s initial refusal to take seriously the threat of a once-in-a-century pandemic. But, as officials detailed, it has been compounded over time by a host of damaging presidential traits — his skepticism of science, impatience with health restrictions, prioritization of personal politics over public safety, undisciplined communications, chaotic management style, indulgence of conspiracies, proclivity toward magical thinking, allowance of turf wars and flagrant disregard for the well-being of those around him.

Kennedy said that Brad Smith, the director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and a friend of Kushner, asked him and another volunteer to make a coronavirus model for 2020 that specifically projected a low casualty count. When Kennedy noted that he had no training in epidemiology and had never modeled a virus before, he recalled, Smith told him that it was just like making a financial model. The other models made by the health experts, Smith explained, were “too catastrophic.”

“‘They think 250,000 people could die and I want this model to show that fewer than 100,000 people will die in the worst-case scenario,’ ” Kennedy said Smith told him. “He gave us the numbers he wanted it to say.”

Kennedy and the other volunteer refused to make the model. But he said the incident left him discomfited.

“[Smith] said, ‘Look around. Does it look like 250,000 people are going to die? I don’t think so,’ ” Kennedy recounted. “And I remember thinking it was a weird thing to say because we were surrounded by military officers in the [Federal Emergency Management Agency] basement and it did look like a lot of people might die.”

“[Kushner] is like, ‘I’m going to bring in my data and we’re going to MBA this to death and make it work,’ ” one senior administration official said.
[...]
Though Kushner had initially promised thousands of testing sites, only 78 materialized, the document said, and the national stockpile was used to supply more than half of those.

“The knock against Jared has always been that he’s a dilettante who will dabble in this and dabble in that without doing the homework or really engaging in a long-term, sustained, committed way, but will be there to claim credit if things go well and disappear if things go poorly,” a former senior administration official said. “And this is another example of that.”

By the summer, Trump had grown angry with Kushner over problems with testing, said current and former administration officials — a rare conflict between the president and his son-in-law.

UK still playing second fiddle in policy-based evidence-making, Pann.

Now, it's conceivable that, all told, India will have more deaths than us, with some ungenerous assumptions as to the accuracy of their tabulation of deaths from all causes...

[Xantan]

mRNA vaccines sound simple enough: identify parts of the virus genome that code for proteins that could trigger an immune response when the live virus enters the body. In practice, I guess any protein on the viral surface, such as spike proteins. In enveloped viruses, such as the coronaviruses, many or all surface proteins should have an easily identifiable signature that means that they can be more or less detected automatically from the genetic sequence.

Then you need to find a protein that that is similar enough in shape when it is produced in isolation (without the rest of the virus) and when it is found on the surface of live viruses (and maybe elsewhere during the viral lifecycle, too). You also need a method to deliver the mRNA to human cells; which perhaps is largely independent of the virus. Then you have it.

In principle yes, in reality it's a bit more complicated.

mRNA are pretty much the first vaccines, as I am aware of, that can be considered genetic modifiers / genetic enhancers. Because mRNA does not work on the traditional vaccine model (inactive virus), we are genetically modifying a code to suit our defensive cells and as a result we have genetic modifications. In theory we should be fine.

However down the line I am a bit wary about this.

Regardless, vaccines are 100% useful.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Can any government possibly have a more chaotic system for rolling out vaccines?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...chaos-n1252615

“This is such an important point and one where each state and each county left alone as an island is a setup for an unmitigated disaster, inequitable delivery, and inefficiency that could lead to more preventable deaths and hospitalizations,” Dr. Sadiya Khan, an epidemiologist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “The lack of an infrastructure for a vaccine that we’ve literally been planning and known was coming for months is wholeheartedly disappointing, but not unexpected.”

The first-come, first-serve vaccine rollout this week in Lee County, in southwestern Florida, resulted in an embarrassing national spectacle — hundreds of senior citizens, many swaddled in blankets and winter coats, camping out overnight in long lines at testing sites that quickly ran out of vaccines.

“This reminded me of pre-internet days of getting into a long line the night before rock concert tickets for the Prince 'Purple Rain' tour went on sale back in the 1980s and hoping they did not sell out before I got to the window to purchase mine,” Jewett said.

A good example of media selectivism in reporting (exactly the same topic as the above NBC article):

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gov...lderly-populat

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drew applause Wednesday for his refusal to take the coronavirus vaccine ahead of senior populations, telling reporters he is "not the priority."

Applause from who, besides you, Fox News?

"That’s the population that’s been most at risk for COVID, it’s impacted their lives greater and we have a responsibility to stand by those folks who have done so much to make our state and country what it is today," DeSantis said during a Wednesday press conference. "You talk about a place like Kings Point, you have people from the Greatest Generation, people who fought in World War II, survived the Holocaust – these are people that we’ve got to stand with and prioritize."

Sounds like the governor is already running for re-election....

I guess it was more important to mention how heroic Gov DeSantis is, in waiting his turn to get vaccinated, while not a peep about those "people from the Greatest Generation" who had to wait in 40 degree weather for hours to get vaccinated....if the supply didn't run out

[Montmorency]

The states are experiencing bottlenecks in distributing what vaccine doses they do have on hand, in part due to the (correct) doctrine of identifying priority populations to vaccinate on schedule. Instead of finding ways around this with their limited resources and in absence of federal support/coordination, such as by putting out calls for general population applicants to absorb vacant slots, governors like Cuomo in NY and Newsom in California are leaning on threats of heavy civil and criminal penalties for providers who do not strictly adhere to the schedules. Probably a mistake.


More evidence that the Swedish public health authority made mass death their formal primary objective all along, and moreover attempted to conceal this from the public.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/22...ovid-response/

When the Swedish government categorized COVID-19 as a socially dangerous disease on Feb. 2, Peet Tull was sitting on a lonely farm on the Swedish island of Gotland, watching developments with concern. Tull was one of the people who built up the country’s infection control unit: He had been Public Health Agency Director Johan Carlson’s boss and also given assignments to Anders Tegnell, the agency’s chief epidemiologist, whom he knows well. Another thing Tull knows well is the Infection Control Act, because he participated in drafting it—and he wondered why Sweden hadn’t implemented a contact-tracing system or put travelers from international COVID-19 hot spots in quarantine.

As he observed global coronavirus cases surge, Tull wrote an email to Tegnell on March 15, proposing three possible options to deal with the pandemic. Option one, he said, would be to “stop all movement and contacts for a four-week period.” Another option, one recommended by the World Health Organization, would be to conduct intensive testing, tracking, and quarantine of infected patients. Or, he said, Sweden could pursue a third option: “Let the spread of infection take place, slowly or quickly, to achieve a hypothetical herd immunity.”

Tull warned: “One thing is known that with option three Sweden will probably have thousands of deaths,” and concluded that “option three appears to me as a defeatist and headless strategy, which I would never have accepted in my previous role.”

Tegnell, the state epidemiologist, answered him the same day: “Well, we have walked through this and after everything landed on [option] three. We probably have a fairly extensive silent spread, which would mean that the first two would probably not work.”

Tull outlined actions to take including issuing general advice and regulations for testing and contact-tracing. Tegnell demurred, arguing that such a strategy hadn’t worked in Italy. Tull countered that it worked in China and South Korea—so why not in Sweden?

Right from the start of the pandemic, according to recently declassified internal emails seen by Foreign Policy, Tegnell seemed resigned to pursuing herd immunity for Swedes, seeing little chance of stopping COVID-19 through the means successfully employed in other countries such as South Korea or Vietnam.

On March 15, the day Tegnell wrote Tull they had landed on option three, Tegnell said the Public Health Agency’s “main tactic” was not herd immunity, adding that its goal and herd immunity were “not contradictory.” But in public, Tegnell frequently argued that herd immunity was “definitely not” a goal. As recently as Nov. 18, Minister of Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren said that the idea that Sweden had pursued a herd immunity strategy was a “rumor.”

The day before his correspondence with Tull, Tegnell forwarded an email to his Finnish counterpart, Mika Salminen, which contained a recommendation from a doctor to allow people to become infected with COVID-19. “One point would be to keep schools open to reach herd immunity more quickly,” Tegnell wrote.

Salminen said his agency had ultimately rejected such an approach, realizing children would still spread the virus, whereas closing schools could limit the disease’s impact on the elderly by about 10 percent. Tegnell, who still thought that quickly achieving herd immunity was the best strategy, responded: “10 percent might be worth it?”

The next day, Tegnell forwarded a study on Italy’s experience with COVID-19 to Jan Albert, a professor of microbiology, who was part of a coronavirus expert group assembled a few weeks earlier by the Karolinska Institute, a university and the center of Sweden’s medical research community. Tegnell pointed to what seemed to be a “flattening of new cases” there.

Albert replied: “Exactly. But most people think it’s just the lockdown. How much [is because of] lockdown and how much [is because of] herd immunity is really the key issue.” Tegnell answered: “If anyone had time, you should look at the various lockdowns that have been made and what the development looks like afterwards. I believe more in herd immunity.’’

Tegnell remained convinced that a rapid spread of the virus would shield Sweden, a belief that seemed to lead the country’s whole response to the crisis. A month after corresponding with Tull, Tegnell said Stockholm could achieve herd immunity in May. Three weeks later, he said: “In the autumn there will be a second wave. Sweden will have a high level of immunity and the number of cases will probably be quite low,” a claim he repeated into mid-October.

Carlson, Tegnell’s boss, echoed on Aug. 30 what Tegnell wrote Tull: “It is not about us sacrificing a lot of people to achieve immunity. This model was the only one that was feasible. Our assessment has proven to be correct. The strategy must last over time. We are one of the few countries with a limited spread of infection, unlike several countries in Europe where the infection returns sharply.”

It didn’t work out that way. Sweden is facing an increase in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. On Nov. 5, the country reached the grim statistic of 6,000 deaths. In the six weeks since, nearly 2,000 more have died. In the week ending Dec. 18, Sweden registered 479 new deaths, more than Norway has during the entire pandemic.

A day after Tegnell corresponded with Tull, he discussed the EU’s not-yet-released border recommendations, including health checks, with Andreas Johansson and others at the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. “This table contains a long list of details where we have a completely different strategy in Sweden,” he wrote. Tegnell opposed border health screenings and did not support EU measures to limit case importation or exportation, arguing that since domestic spread had already begun in most countries, border limits would be relatively meaningless.

The very next day, March 17, Tegnell said on television that he did not think there was any difference between what other countries were doing and what Sweden was attempting. “I do not think these strategies are different, we are talking about exactly the same thing in both strategies,” he said.

Throughout the pandemic, Stockholm issued no general national mask recommendations, not even for general elder care, unless there was evidence patients had the coronavirus. The government’s official health guidance still casts doubt on the efficacy of wearing masks, even as authorities in most other countries have come to appreciate the role that masks play in limiting the spread of an airborne virus. But then Swedish health authorities remain unconvinced the virus even is airborne, officially telling citizens “COVID-19 does not count as an airborne infection.” On Dec. 18, the government announced that the Public Health Agency would draw up recommendations for wearing masks during crowded commuting hours on public transit, but those will only come into force after Jan. 7. The updated official advice includes the line, “We do not currently recommend a broad use of masks in society,” and continues to cast doubt on the scientific evidence for masks, even saying that masks may provide a false sense of security.

Unlike in neighboring countries, bars, restaurants, and gyms remained open. Compulsory in-person schooling continued through middle school; high school and post-secondary education moved online on March 17. Not until March 24, two weeks after the risk level was raised to the highest level, was the general public encouraged to socially distance if possible. Nursing homes stayed open to visitors until April 1.

While neighbors began to introduce curbs on public life and speed up testing, Sweden did neither. Denmark, which entered a short lockdown on March 17, began easing it when it announced the beginning of widespread testing on March 30. Internal emails show it wasn’t until Denmark implemented its testing plan that the Swedish government and the Public Health Agency even began discussing one.

Whether authorities were talking about herd immunity, access to hospital care, how the virus spreads, or how testing was determined, Sweden told one story in public and a different one in private.

Prime Minister Stefan Lofven declined to be interviewed, but a spokesperson said: “Herd immunity is not a strategy, but a potential consequence of how the spread of the virus develops. Herd immunity has never been a part of the Swedish Government’s strategy.” Lofven, through a spokesperson, previously said that Sweden’s “strategy is not much different from other countries,” yet Sweden is the only democratic country in the world that does not mandate even limited use of masks.

A full government reckoning of the handling of the pandemic won’t be made public until 2022, but an interim report on the spread of the virus in nursing homes was released on Dec. 15. It noted that government measures were late and inadequate, and called the spread of the virus in society the “single most important factor behind the major outbreaks and the high number of deaths in residential care.”

One man at least, Tull, had seen what was coming and tried to warn experts not to make matters worse. In his final email to Tegnell on March 15, Tull, who had worked to eradicate smallpox in Bangladesh, implored health authorities not to throw up their hands and to give science and precautionary measures a chance.

“You cannot just watch when you fear that a large number of people may die,” he wrote. “Every effort must be made to prevent this from happening. It is not enough to ‘believe’ that it is not possible.”

Even worse to continue watching, to take pains to keep everyone else watching, even after a large number of people have come to die.

Is Sweden like a case study in hierarchical failure in organizations, or what? Did they just happen to land on a "scientific" consensus around the epidemiological equivalent of bloodletting in the one country? Or is it that one man (Tegnell) had a fixation on facilitated spread as a shortcut, and that became the (covert) politically-correct line among government scientists? Either way, Sweden demonstrates the downside of high social trust in government (namely that it can hinder timely scrutiny of government operation).

If you think your strategy is so great, you shouldn't have to lie to the public about it like some dastardly bureaucrat in a late-20th century action movie.


Interesting analysis of how Swedish Social Democratic PM Loefven is maneuvering to turn his tenure during the pandemic to his advantage, partly by deflecting blame. Article includes context to the beginning of his reign more than 5 years ago. If Loefven somehow manages to expand Sweden's welfare state by leaning on conservative culpability in underfunding healthcare and elder care, that would be a nice turnaround. He really should repudiate and fire Tegnell though, or get him to "resign," assuming he has the authority.
https://www.politico.eu/article/stef...avirus-escape/


Silver lining of the 2020 pandemic is that the whole world will probably be better technically and institutionally prepared for all possible future pandemics, whether or not this endowment be put to use when the time comes.



"Covid Denial in One Picture" (It's the SIR that makes this funny for New Yorkers)




One of the latest posts ("Media, Grief, and Three Views of a Tragic Covid Zoom Goodbye"):




Paul Krugman points out that conservative instincts of perversity, futility, and jeopardy with regard to public health measures (such as against CV19) are bone-deep. See The Economist against the position that London should invest in its sewers:

Suffering and evil are nature's admonitions; they cannot be got rid of; and the impatient attempts of benevolence to banish them from the world by legislation, before benevolence has learned their object and their end, have always been more productive of evil than good.

Translation: We exist; good luck getting rid of us.


Portrait in lack of perspicacity:




Is this normal? The chasm between antibody testing capacity and utilization is strange to me, far in excess of the gap between antigen testing capacity and utilization as it is.




Funny, but Tegnell and Carl Heneghan apparently both met Boris Johnson in September - at the same time - to advise him against implementing new restrictions. Around that time when I was affirming that the UK had to act fast if it was serious about maintaining any semblance of both normality and public health through the fall. Smashing.

I hope they all get canceled. It's the least we can do.


Speaking of Britain, I might as well dump some Brexit stuff here.

https://twitter.com/Milo_Edwards/sta...23289451180035 [VIDEO]

Some, uh, context....
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...pe-environment [2009]
https://twitter.com/rolandmcs/status...51610595209217 [VIDEO] [2018]
https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.u...urvive-2732750 [2019]

News reports should really try to mention when subjects or interviewees have appeared in the media in the past.


Special report for Pannonian: American Republicans finance the increasingly-vocal UK libertarian movement, with such manifestations as the Great Barrington Declaration.


Podcast on Brexit, in loose summary:

Hard Brexit but not No Deal with overwhelming Parliament vote. Customs border between NI and the rest of the UK remains (NI still in EU customs union). UK fishers can come within 12 miles of France, but EU fishers can come within 6 miles of UK (shore). But fishing is less than 0.1% of UK GDP. An Independent article or poll has only 27% of the UK population satisfied with the agreement. As part of the agreement, UK has left the Erasmus program of exchange between universities. Official Labour party platform is that the issue is settled for the foreseeable future, and that even most strong EU supporters in the party have acquiesced. Political attention will shift away from the issue because it's both boring and anxiety-inducing, especially among the general public. (Ed. Looking at the historical cycles of social democracy, one would expect the issue to be revived eventually - at least from the top down - perhaps sooner rather than later given that the EU as exogenous influence will be constantly revisited in terms of ongoing unfinished topics of negotiation and international relations.) Brexiters hope to replace 4-5% lost GDP from Brexit with a trade deal with the US or elsewhere that improves upon the former EU status quo. From the perspective of the UK, either Trump or Biden as president would screw them in any trade deal. UK MSM coverage of Trump's/Republicans' election shenanigans has consistently overestimated their formal authority, or their invocation thereof (e.g. "alternate electoral slates"). The UK has set a new record for recorded infections last week (Ed. Also this week), indicative of the sorts of failures of the Conservative government that have brought them to a tie with or running behind Labour in the polls. The Conservative Party is supposedly apt at removing leaders that will lose them power, so Johnson's days may be as numbered as May's at this rate.

Now, the initial play for the Conservative Party would and should have been to blame Brussels, because that's always a winner. Blame Brussels, a bunch of Eurocrats, you know, whatever they speak - French, they're scary - or German, which is worse, right?

Unrelated to Brexit or this podcast, but I just learned that there are ~50% more mining and quarry workers in the EU (less UK?) than in the US.


...Something about London schools?

I guess it was more important to mention how heroic Gov DeSantis is, in waiting his turn to get vaccinated, while not a peep about those "people from the Greatest Generation" who had to wait in 40 degree weather for hours to get vaccinated....if the supply didn't run out

DeathSantis.

who had to wait in 40 degree weather for hours

Everything granted, granted, granted, but dude - you're from Michigan.